Document Control

A verified improvement may change the instruction people use on the next shift. The Quality Manager maintains the controlled document’s title, version and effective date with its attached file. Draft, Review, Approved and Obsolete identify where the document sits in the team’s release process.

Acknowledgment records connect a person to a document and retain when the acknowledgment occurred. That provides a way to review who has acknowledged a particular standard. The operating team should still decide who needs to read the instruction and how to confirm that the revised method is understood during actual work.

• Document preparation. The Quality Manager records the title and version with the intended effective date and attachment. A draft remains distinct from an approved instruction so staff can identify the standard intended for use.
• Release decision. The team reviews the document and records approval under the authority agreed during setup. Obsolete identifies a retired standard. The document status should reflect a deliberate release decision by the responsible person.
• Personal acknowledgment. An acknowledgment links the exact document to the person and records its date. That link matters when a new version follows an improvement and the team needs to distinguish earlier reading from the current instruction.

Choose how each document version will be represented and preserved. If an acknowledgment must remain attached to the version the person actually read, retain that document identity when introducing a replacement. Agree your versioning practice before importing historical acknowledgments.

Name the person authorized to release a standard and define the audience who should acknowledge it. The Quality Manager can maintain the acknowledgment records, while staff can inspect their own history through the agreed access setup. Decide where the approved attachment is maintained and how changes are coordinated if the source file lives in an external document repository. Treat that repository connection as a separate setup choice.

Use a revised tool-placement instruction following a verified Kaizen improvement. Prepare the new document with a clear version and effective date, then review the attachment with the people responsible for the affected bench. Release the instruction through the agreed approval practice and retain the earlier standard’s identity when it becomes Obsolete.

Record an acknowledgment for the revised document from a person mapped to their user account. Confirm that their earlier acknowledgment still refers to the previous document. The Quality Manager should be able to show both records and explain which instruction was read on each occasion. Review the agreed audience separately to identify people who still need to acknowledge the change.

During rehearsal, open the approved attachment from the staff view and check that the title and version match the intended instruction. A correct acknowledgment date is useful only when it belongs to the document the person was meant to read.

• Document Draft Inbox — Draft instructions ready for the team’s document preparation review.
• Approved Standards — Released instructions with their versions, effective dates and attached documents.
• My Acknowledgments — The signed-in person’s record of acknowledged documents.

Use Standards and acknowledgments after Kaizen proposal to verification or corrective work changes the operating method.